" Ambivalence toward do-gooders also arises out of a deep uncertainty about how a person ought to live. Is it good to try to live as moral a life as possible—a saintly life? Or does a life like that lack some crucial human quality? Is it right to care for strangers at the expense of your own people? Is it good to bind yourself to a severe morality that constricts spontaneity and freedom? Is it possible for a person to hold himself to unforgiving standards without becoming unforgiving? Is it presumptuous, even blasphemous, for a person to imagine that he can transfigure the world—or to believe that it really matters what he does in his life when he’s only a tiny flickering speck in a vast universe? Should morality be the highest human court—the one whose ruling overrides all others? "

― Larissa MacFarquhar , Strangers Drowning: Grappling with Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Overpowering Urge to Help